Frankenstein, a Gothic Novel

1. Introduction

Once a group of Chinese was visiting the home of an American. As they were shown around the house, they commented, "You have a very nice home. It's so beautiful." The hostess smiled with obvious pleasure and replied in good American fashion "Thank you" ---- which caused surprise among some of her Chinese guests. Later, while conversing at the dinner table, the host remarked to the Chinese interpreter, a young lady who had graduated not long ago from a university, "Your English is excellent. Really quite fluent." To this she demurred, "No, no. My English is quite poor" ---- an answer that he had not expected and found a bit puzzling.

Was the American hostess' reply immodest, as it seemed to some of the Chinese?

Was the young Chinese interpreter's remark insincere, as it sounded to the American?

In both case the answer is no. why? The answer is cultural differences between Chinese and American. The reason for such different reactions was differences in customs and habits. Each was interpreting what the other said according to his or her own culture.

What do we mean by culture? Following the definitions of sociologists and anthropologists, the term culture refers to the total pattern of beliefs, customs, institutions, objects, and techniques that characterize the life a human community. "Culture consists of all the shared products of human society" (Robertson, 1981). This means not only such material things as cities, organizations and schools, but also non-material things such as ideas, customs, family patterns, languages. Putting it simply, culture refers to the entire way of life of a society, "the ways of a people."

As the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth create...

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...pliments by other people, Americans tend to accept the compliment while Chinese generally murmur some reply about not being worthy of the praise.

Here a few examples can reflect this difference:

A young Chinese woman in the U.S. was complimented for the lovely dress that she was wearing." It's exquisite. The colors are so beautiful!" She was pleased but somewhat embarrassed. In typical Chinese fashion, she replied, "Oh, it's just an ordinary dress that I bought in China."

At a reception in an American college, a newly-arrived Chinese scholar was chatting with the hostess, who was an old friend. As an acquaintance of hers came up she said, "Ron, let me introduce Mr. Chen offered his hand to the newcomer but looked at his hostess and said with a smile, " Should I blush, or should I tell him you don't really mean it?"